Category Archives: Aer Lingus

We concluded our trip in Ireland by flying home on Aer Lingus business class. Our inbound flight was DUB-BOS and then we connected on a separate Southwest flight from Boston to Milwaukee. We drove all the way from Galway to Dublin the morning of our flight and ran into quite a bit of traffic as we got closer to Dublin!! We checked in for our flight as normal and received our boarding passes and lounge passes. We were running slightly late and I wanted to just get to the gate right away however after arriving we were treated to a delay and new flight time. With about an hour delay we decided to check out the Aer Lingus lounge. The lounge was packed and thus just stopped in for a quick drink and bathroom break and about 10 minutes later we walked back to the gate. I didn’t take pictures since there were just too many people. There were some good views of the tarmac and gates from the upper floor of the lounge.

Outside the lounge

View from 2nd floor of the lounge View from the boarding area

We were seated in 2A and 2C for this flight.

Getting settled in

Bubbly for two

Beautiful views on the climb out

One last look at the Ireland countryside from the air!

Bye bye Ireland 🙁

Whats on the menu?

Starter

The seafood platter and salad

The wifes 2nd course

Chicken stuffed with blue cheese

Chocolate marble cake

Sticky toffee pudding!! Wow this was good! My wife got this and I asked the flight attendant if there was any extras but alas they were all spoken for.

Forgot what this was!

The service on both of our Aer Lingus flights were quite good and they took care of everything needed. I would certainly have no problem flying them again. In fact when we go to Ireland again I will be looking to book them again as long as I have the Avois points and the value is still there. The only downside is the seat is not very comfortable for sleeping but otherwise there is plenty of space I am 6’1″ and 215 and I found the seat comfortable otherwise for relaxing and watching the IFE.

PointsPinnacle Breakdown

Our flight home was only 25,000 Avios points and about $90 per ticket in BUSINESS CLASS!! You can see the total for both of us below.

Our email receipt confirmation

There are so many ways to earn British Airways Avios points and this trip being 50,000 Avios points per person is such a great deal. Dublin to Boston is JUST under 3000 miles which is a sweet spot for the BA award chart. There is so much value out of redeeming these shorter flights using Avios.

Let me recap some of the ways I have received Avios points in the past year or so:

Chase British Airways card (I received 100,000 Avios)

American Express Premier Gold Rewards Business card (I received 75,000 Membership Rewards points which can be transferred into Avios points)

American Express Platinum card (I received 100,000 Membership rewards points which can be transferred into Avios)

So with 3 cards I easily earned about 300,000 Avios points. AMEX membership rewards runs a lot of transfer bonuses to Avios points. I transferred about 75,000 to Avios in 2013 with the 35% transfer bonus. I could take 6 business class trips on Aer Lingus Boston-Dub with 300,000 Avios!!!!! This is taking points to the pinnacle!!

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed our trip to Ireland and learned how to potentially redeem points for a similar trip if you want to visit Ireland!

After our quick stay in Boston we were set to fly out to Dublin!! This is a destination my wife really wanted to visit so she was pumped and I was excited to visit as well. First off I will say Ireland is a really good destination for using miles and points. There is usually plenty of availability flying on Aer Lingus and there are several chain hotels serving Ireland! Club Carlson was our choice due to so many properties in different location in Ireland. I think this is a destination we can soon visit again due to how easy it is to get there and stay on points. We started booking this flight March of 2013, so about 6 months prior to the trip.

Ireland is a very fun country and also contains enormous natural beauty! I was surprised how much fun this trip was perhaps because I allowed myself to have low expectations thinking it would be cold and rainy and there would be too much driving during this trip! While there was a fair share of driving the trip in general was a blast!